The People's Horse and Taylor Made are teaming up at Equestricon™ to bring you a host of inviting experiences as they launch their collaboration surrounding the true "People's Horse" California Chrome! Sign their famous horse replica, see storyboards about the mares that members will choose, and learn about special offers and experiences! Make sure to check our both members: The People's Horse in booth 4001 and Taylor Made in booth 2008!

FIVE REASONS TO GET BEHIND THE PEOPLE’S HORSE

Geoffrey Gray

Owning a racehorse is one of our oldest, most celebrated traditions, but high costs, an insular industry and a host of other reasons have prevented generations of new fans from enjoying one of life’s most thrilling experiences. To change that, we launched The People’s Horse, a new project that fuses digital crowdsourcing, interactive media and old-school horsemanship, and allows anyone the experience of horse ownership. With California Chrome as our stallion and Taylor Made Farm as our partner, we’re building a growing community that can help raise our foal to be.

We invite you to join us, and here’s five reasons why.

1.) Once new fans get to experience sport’s special access, they’re hooked

It’s no secret the equine industry is struggling to attract new fans, gamblers and owners. Every so often, new studies show horse racing has devolved from a top American pastime to an increasingly niche market. The People’s Horse alone likely won’t change that trajectory, but can offer different levels of access to the sport’s most addictive ingredients: the farms, the backside, and ultimately horses themselves.

2.) Horses can deliver a spectacular emotional charge, if you get to know them

Before we started the project last year, we did not understand the power of a racehorse. It didn’t take long. The horses we met were playful, moody, loving. They had their own personalities, just like people. The emotional connection we formed was quick, and watching our new friends sprint out onto the track was such an adrenalin-fueled rush that few things compare. As storytellers, there was no way to share that spectacular emotional charge we experienced through words or video alone. We had to be stakeholders. We had to feel the real thing. All of us. Even if the buy in was only $100.

3.) Horses force us to defy the efficiency of the modern world and surrender to nature’s whims.

The modern world is all about efficiency, scale and predicability. Racehorses are the opposite. The athletes are maddening creatures, other owners tell us, because they cannot be controlled. Anything can happen: sickness, injury, a change of feeling. It takes a lifetime of expertise to understand and care for them properly, and that’s often not enough. We’re up for learning and facing this humbling challenge.

4.) Horses are healers.

The results are undeniable. When you see a horse, there is an undeniable shift of emotion and change of mood, a sense of relaxation. Experts call it “the calming effect,” and horses are routinely used to treat humans with depression and psychological disorders. One jockey told us the reason was the large size of a horse’s heart: it created a massive aura, and their unusually low blood pressure was to blame for triggering a relaxing feeling in us. We could all use a few healthy doses of horsepower.

5.) Horses allow us to love blindly and share something to love in common.

The complex web of relationships make it hard to love without conditions. But with a foal we can all share, we can love our horse without pre-conditions nor expecting anything in return. Together, as a community devoted towards supporting, nurturing and rooting for our horse to thrive, we’ve already broken down traditional barriers. We have a diverse mix of members, including heads of corporations, editors of magazines, a 7-year-old form the Midwest, photographers, chefs, political consultants, analysts, Republicans, Democrats, libertarians. Among strangers, we all have a bond we can all share, a cause to root for. In this new era, together, we’re in a position to achieve great things. Join us.